The Hong Kong Film Festival is an annual event where word-class motion pictures are shown. (Photo : commons.wikimedia.org)
The 39th Hong Kong International Film Festival, which will run from March 23 to April 6, recently announced its movie lineup which includes 260 titles from 56 countries, 78 of which are international and Asian premieres.
"Murmur of the Hearts," a Sylvia Chang film, is set to open the festival, while Philip Yung's "Port of Call" is scheduled to close the two-week-long event. Both movies will have their world premieres at the festival.
"I think it's very good to open with a world premiere of a film by a filmmaker and then follow it with a tribute to her," Roger Garcia, Hong Kong International Film Festival Society executive director, shared in The Hollywood Reporter interview.
"We've wanted to do a tribute to Sylvia for some time. Now with a new film coming out, it seems an opportune time," he further added.
Chang is hailed as the film fest's 2015 edition's Filmmaker in Focus. She has served as the Hong Kong International Film Society's vice chair for three years since 2010.
Her film "Murmur of the Hearts" marks a return to her native Taiwanese roots. Its stellar cast includes Joseph Chang ("Prince of Tears"), Lawrence Ko ("Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow") and Isabella Leong ("The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor").
On the other hand, "Port of Call" is a true-to-life crime story with Aaron Kwok ("After This Our Exile") on the lead.
The Hong Kong Film Festival's gala presentations will include Lau Ho-leung's "Two Thumbs Up," Peter Greenaway's "Eisenstein in Guanajuato," and Tsui Hark's "The Taking of Tiger Mountain 3D." Tsui's film garnered a gross income of over 627 million yuan ($140 million).
This year, the organizers have again tied up with online video streaming site youku.com to produce "Beautiful 2015." The omnibus film is composed of four short movies directed by Yim Ho (Hong Kong), Huang Jian-xin (China), Tsai Ming-Liang (Taiwan), and Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Iran).
Furthermore, the 39th Hong Kong Film Festival will also showcase German and Israeli motion pictures created by budding film directors.
As a tribute to the late Japanese film icon Mikio Naruse's 110th birth anniversary, the movie lineup will include four of his masterpieces, namely "Scattered Clouds" (1967), "Daughters, Wives and a Mother" (1960), "Floating Clouds" (1955) and "Repast" (1951).
